MUNCIE, Ind. — The BIG Booksale returned to Ball State University’s campus this week on Tuesday and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the first-floor hallway of the North Quad building. The fundraiser is hosted by the Philosophy and Religious Studies clubs.
These clubs rely on events like this sale for funding for their most exciting excursions. Their next goal is to save enough money to take the club off campus for a field trip to a religious sanctuary just outside of St. Louis. The president of Religious Conversation Hour at Ball State University, Elijah Sturjes, looks forward to making this mission come to life.
Sturjes works closely with Dave Concapcion, the faculty advisor for the philosophy club and faculty liaison for the booksale fundraiser. With Concapcion’s help, they were able to reach professors and faculty all across campus to make donations. This resulted in a wide variety of academic texts for students to choose from.
The Philosophy club invited and encouraged all Ball State students across all fields and majors on campus to attend the sale and find an affordable book that suited their interests.
“I think it gets them to think about subjects that they’re interested in – sort of go more in-depth on – we have a big problem with effective literacy in America, where people aren’t reading, so being able to offer people books at a very cheap price could get people to read about stuff that they’re interested in,” Sturjes said.
The sale ensured there was an option for any student who stopped through, containing books from almost every college. All the books on sale were extremely affordable. Most of them were priced at $2. The exceptions were small $1 paperbacks and various $3 hard copies.
Sturjes was there for the beginning of the sale on Tuesday. “Seeing people get excited about reading is always fun,” he said.
The religious conversation hour group encourages people to have conversations about important subjects and think deeply about different perspectives regarding both religion and philosophy.
“We have different content each week to sort of stimulate discussion,” explained Sturjes. “But it’s always about getting people to talk about topics and ideas that matter deeply.”
Though the Religious Studies club and Philosophy club are separate in administration, they hold all of their meetings jointly. They meet every Monday from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in room 291 at North Quad.
Contact Tatum Harris with comments at tatum.harris@bsu.edu.
